Many users of the Internet interact with web-based email applications, online services, social networking sites, and other websites that require login credentials. For example, many users maintain multiple email accounts with different providers, multiple social networking accounts, etc. A “power user” may have different user credentials for many different websites, and keeping track of the user credentials can be cumbersome and frustrating. Some existing websites may have partnership arrangements with other websites that allow multiple websites to share the same user credentials for purposes of logging in a user.
Furthermore, modern software development is evolving away from the client-server model toward network-based processing systems that provide access to data and services via the Internet or other networks. In contrast to traditional systems that host networked applications on dedicated server hardware, a “cloud” computing model allows applications to be provided over the network “as a service” supplied by an infrastructure provider. The infrastructure provider typically abstracts the underlying hardware and other resources used to deliver a customer-developed application so that the customer no longer needs to operate and support dedicated server hardware. The cloud computing model can often provide substantial cost savings to the customer over the life of the application because the customer no longer needs to provide dedicated network infrastructure, electrical and temperature controls, physical security and other logistics in support of dedicated server hardware.
Accordingly, the same user might have a set of credentials for logging into a social networking website, another set of credentials for logging into a cloud-based application or service, and other sets of credentials for logging into other websites, services, applications, and the like. Unfortunately, many individual websites have not yet deployed any form of true single sign-on (SSO) functionality that allows end users to effectively use user credentials for different websites in a seamless and transparent manner.
Accordingly, it is desirable to have an efficient and effective methodology for providing SSO across a website and a cloud-based application or service. Furthermore, other desirable features and characteristics will become apparent from the subsequent detailed description and the appended claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings and the foregoing technical field and background.